Nasa's Juno spacecraft will execute the second of two big burns on its main engine on Tuesday.

The manoeuvre will put the probe on a path to flyby Earth in October next year. This sweep around the home planet will then give the mission a gravitational boost and the velocity required to get it out to Jupiter in July 2016.

What you might not know is that this critical event depends on British-designed and -built hardware.

Juno is equipped with a Leros-1b apogee engine prepared by Moog-ISP of Westcott.